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2

When I did work for the Minnesota Dept of Transportation, it seemed like every project I was involved in used a completely new mixture of data formats and software packages.
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whatsisnameNov 1 '11 at 15:52

3

This should be migrated to the GIS site, I think you'll get better feedback there.
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RichardMNov 1 '11 at 16:24

3

One wonders what "most pervasive" might mean. Arguably, a format is "pervasive" only if it shows up on that Wikipedia page, in which case the question answers itself. Does the interest lie in amount of data stored in a format? Number of entities using a format? Recent rates of increase in the rate of use of a format? Size and visibility of the organizations adopting a format? Number of software programs natively using (or importing? exporting?) a format? Total user base of said programs? Etc., etc.
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whuber♦Nov 1 '11 at 17:12

4

I agree that the definition of pervasive is important. But I don't think I would ever argue that a format is pervasive just because it shows up on wikipedia!
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Mark IrelandNov 1 '11 at 17:58

1

If the question had some reasoning behind the need for the pervasiveness we might get to a consensus
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Brad NesomNov 1 '11 at 18:40

4 Answers
4

Although you can divide data by vector/raster etc there are some obvious problems.
For example an Oracle database can store vector or raster (as can other databases).

I work at Safe Software where we generally prefer to look at Spatial data (rather than just GIS) and so divide into different categories according to use.

CAD

GIS

Raster

Database

BIM/3D

Web

Point Cloud

Whether this is a better categorization I'm not sure, but it does (I think) help determine whether a format is pervasive for a particular field.

Also, there is "pervasive" and then there is "best". Shape format is very pervasive in GIS, but I don't know that everyone will say it is the best. XML-based formats are up-and-coming since they work well for web delivery.

Anyway, we collect stats on most-used formats and I think I can probably share them since it's nothing you couldn't guess:

I remember seeing a slide showing a matrix of which input and output formats were the most popular in FME, do you have a link to that available? Of course Shapefile was #1 for both.
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blah238Nov 1 '11 at 18:06

@blah238 - there is a format version, but the only one I can find is from 2006. The opening session slides from our 2006 user conference, if you cared to look it up: fmeuc.com/archive/2006fmeuc.php
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Mark IrelandNov 1 '11 at 21:26

I would add ECW to the list of raster formats. If you work with big ortophotos, a raster format featuring partial decompression is a must. There is also MrSID, but I found ECW more used because it is ESRI's and this company's tools are almost ubiquitous in the GIS world.
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dariapraNov 2 '11 at 9:50

2

ECW is not ESRI's. The ECW format was developed by Earth Resource Mapping, and is now owned by Intergraph via ERDAS. That said, I would add all of the common wavelet compression formats: ECW, MrSID, and JPEG2000, to the raster list.
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user3461Nov 2 '11 at 12:46

As a top 3 I would class ECW 4th or 5th as it takes common image types and use an algorithm to compress that format and wrap it into an ecw file. Which can be only read by it's own native software or extension for GIS software - tiff,jpeg,png can be read natively by most popular GIS packages.
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Mapperz♦Nov 2 '11 at 13:51